Say no to the orange frosty

Spring storm last night, buffeting rain and wind. Nonetheless, I saw my first yellow finch and red-winged blackbird of the season yesterday and this morning I found the tiny red shoots of peonies coming up under the asian pear trees. There were peonies there our first year, but nothing came up last year so I thought it had died. It hadn’t – and it’s here to go with the two peonie forests along the fence.

Rob and I spent the weekend together, Sunday brunch at Alki Beach Cafe, Saturday night at Spaghetti Factory. We bought paraphanlia to make our second container garden – a 6’x4′ redwood frame and lots of good soil. We are trying one of those upside down tomato plants – 100 tomatoes from seed. We’ll see.

Cathy and Garry attended Mark’s memorial Saturday. Very sad for his family. I had a very realistic dream of dad last night. Mom and I were spending the night together and she said she had a phone and wanted to know what phone number it was set to ring to (whatever that means). She dialed the number (do people dial, anymore?) and we heard ringing in the next room and a deep greeting: “Y’Ello!” It was dad’s voice! We both leapt out of bed and ran into the next room. There he was, grinning and laughing in his bathrobe and mom ran to embrace him, crying. I fell to the ground sobbing and grateful. I don’t remember the reason he gave to our “WHY?”, but it didn’t matter because I really believed he was here, always here all along and I had countless more days with him. The dream didn’t last long, but its effects are still here. I really want to see him again. I’m counting on Heaven.

I spent several hours Sunday night trying to reconcile billing for BOMA in emails with Lianna. Rob was patiently waiting for me in the media room so we could watch Celebrity Apprentice (Darryl Strawberry quit). I finally finished and ran in to tell him I’d make a smoothie for us. Meanwhile, he watched an Oprah Show on diabetes and Human Timepiece about our body and eating. So when I came in with an orange frosty made with a whole orange, vanilla creamer and orange concentrate, I thought he’d be very happy. No, he only took a few sips and cautioned me to not use sugar. That includes natural fruit sugar. This from the guy who drowned his pancakes in maple syrup about five hours earlier. We had a long, emotion-filled chat about food and health. I pretty much was offended and raised my voice whereas he was his usual calm. It all comes down to me wanting to feel appreciated and feeling judged. That wasn’t the case, but that didn’t stop me. Oh, well. Live and learn and try to do better.

Current wildlife count outside my window: 7 pigeons, 2 squirrels and a steller jay. I love this home and yard.